Trajan's Markets & the Tower of the Militia

Why is it significant?

Look at the great half-moon of red brick carved into the hillside: arched doorways on the ground floor, windows above, more storeys stacked up the slope behind. Imagine every one of those arches with a shopkeeper standing in the doorway, and you are not far from the truth.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Look at the great half-moon of red brick carved into the hillside: arched doorways on the ground floor, windows above, more storeys stacked up the slope behind. Imagine every one of those arches with a shopkeeper standing in the doorway, and you are not far from the truth.

This is the complex known as Trajan's Markets, built in the early second century, probably designed by Apollodorus of Damascus, the emperor's favourite architect. It contained around one hundred and fifty rooms on several levels, linked by staircases and by a steep, paved street that still survives up the hill. Shops, storerooms, offices of the imperial administration... Scholars still argue over exactly what went on in each room, but it feels astonishingly modern.

What was clever was the engineering. The semicircle holds back the slope of the Quirinal hill that had been cut away for the forum below. Instead of a dead retaining wall, Apollodorus built a living building into it. Two thousand years later, you can still walk through those vaulted halls, which is more than can be said for most shopping centres built in the twentieth century.

Now raise your eyes to the tall tower leaning over the complex. That is the Torre delle Milizie, built in the Middle Ages, when Roman noble families fought each other from fortified towers. Romans used to tell visitors that Nero stood on top of it, singing as he watched Rome burn in 64. A lovely story... except that the tower was built more than a thousand years after Nero died. It leans because an earthquake in 1348 shifted its foundations, and it has been tilting gently ever since.

Apollodorus, by the way, came to a bad end. According to an ancient historian, he mocked the architectural designs of the next emperor, Hadrian, telling him to go away and draw his pumpkins, and Hadrian never forgave him. Walk down toward the wide road and turn up the slope behind the forums, toward a towering grey wall.